Vatican signals options for protecting gay couples

A high-ranking Vatican official on Monday (Feb. 4) voiced support for giving unmarried couples some kind of legal protection even as he reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, also said the church should do more to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in countries where homosexuality is illegal.

In his first Vatican press conference since his appointment as the Catholic Church’s “minister” for family, Paglia conceded that there are several kinds of “cohabitation forms that do not constitute a family,” and that their number is growing.

Paglia suggested that nations could find “private law solutions” to help individuals who live in non-matrimonial relations, “to prevent injustice and make their life easier.”